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‘Black Widow’ Review–A Female’s Perspective

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Let me start off by saying that I’m a Black Widow fan. I have been saying that Marvel needed to do a film with her for years and it was frankly crap that they didn’t. She was important to the MCU, she sacrificed herself just like Tony Stark, and she kicked butt without super powers or super powered suits.

Marvel waiting until now to do a Black Widow film is more indicative of their feelings of strong female leads than any PR push they want to make to the contrary.

That being said, here’s what I thought.

It was good. Definitely better than Captain Marvel, but as a friend of mine said “Captain Marvel is a low bar.”

Warning there may be spoilers ahead.

There’s no turning back now.

Black Widow was a film that I was extremely interested in seeing from the beginning. As it got shuffled further and further back, I was honestly starting to lose interest in it.

Then when the PR started and it was about ‘girl power’ and ‘feminism’ I started to lose even more interest. This is why I titled this article the way I did.

Lately Hollywood keeps pushing for these things, but they do it in a way that feels fake. Thankfully, this movie didn’t go as far as I was thinking it would. Maybe Marvel should back off the push of “girl power” and just promote it like they would any other MCU film. I think their incessant push there is what is turning people off. If they would just let people watch and make their own decisions they would get further.

Here’s my take on it.

Overall it’s a good movie.

If feels like it fits in the MCU and you can tell it’s a Marvel/ Avengers film.

The characters were believable.  The sister feeling was there. I have a little sister so I have some experience in this area. You definitely get the family vibe from this film.

The action was great and it was fast paced the entire way through the film. Transitions were well done and they explained things in a way that felt organic and not too much like exposition dumps (which I hate.)

The “family” dynamic was interesting and mostly well done. Each character definitely has their own motivation and quirks, but the idea that they remain “family” is endearing.

I also thought where they put the Red Room was clever and unexpected. Sometimes these films get so predictable.

Speaking of predictable, here’s where I have some issues.

  1. Taskmaster.  They totally nerfed the character.  From the beginning we joked that it was going to be a woman and unsurprise it was.

    In the comics the character was a formidable adversary that could mimic any fighting style, but it came with memory issues. He’s a mercenary and trains other villians.  Overall gifted and fierce.

    The version we got in this film was an injured woman with a chip in her head that made her a weapon.  There was a lot of backlash over this choice, because we already had the whole “enslaved women” thing going on.  Maybe it was just to show how terrible her father, Dreykov, really was.  Which brings me to my second issue.

2. Dreykov feels like a Harvey Weinstein stand-in and he’s obviously the personification of “misogyny” which is where I think the idea that it’s a “feminist” film comes from. The guy is just over the top.  He programs widows to not kill him when they smell his pheromones.  Eww.

Then he makes the comment about women being a natural resource and I was literally rolling my eyes.  We get it. He’s a douche.

If they had just toned him down and made it about world domination and soldiers, okay that would have been better, but no it’s about a man enslaving women to accomplish his goals.

3. Alexi was a bit of a mixed bag. He starts off seeming very competent but by the time they rescue him he seems more like a washed up narcissist.  He does come into his own more later. I get people change, but it was almost like they were trying to make him seem incompetent compared to the women. I hate that. I think characters shine more when they can hold their own against equals and not just take a character and lessen them to lift another one up. I think that was a big issue with “The Last Jedi” as well.

But even those annoyances weren’t enough to make me feel the film was bad. In my opinion it was a good movie and I would watch it again. The issues I have sound bigger than they are because I’ve given it a lot of thought.

I think my husband feels a bit more critical of it as he was more disappointed in what they did to Taskmaster. Since he was a comics reader I get that. The MCU in general seems to be more geared to non-comics readers than the long time followers of the books.

I would rate it a 7.5/10.


Pirates & Princesses (PNP) is an independent, opinionated fan-powered news blog that covers Disney and Universal Theme Parks, Themed Entertainment and related Pop Culture from a consumer's point of view. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of PNP, its editors, affiliates, sponsors or advertisers. PNP is an unofficial news source and has no connection to The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal or any other company that we may cover.



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